'A lot of rubbish' - Ryanair boss says he'd scrap Joe Duffy's Liveline and soaps if he ran RTÉ

The head of Ryanair has stated he would scrap programmes such as Joe Duffy's Liveline if he was running RTÉ. 

Soaps such as Eastenders and the Louise Duffy Show are among other programmes Michael O'Leary would like to see dropped, however he praised the Claire Byre Show and RTÉ flagship, Morning Ireland. 

The airline boss made the comments in response to a question on how he would turn around the scandal-stricken public broadcaster. 

It comes as RTÉ faces a funding crisis exacerbated by a drop-off in licence fee revenue. 

Speaking to Sky News' Stephen Murphy, O'Leary said, "RTÉ is a bit like Aerlingus used to be in the 1980s, you know, probably overstaffed and certainly badly run. 

"Would I like to see RTÉ survive? Yes, clearly. I think news in RTÉ does a very good job, but there's lots of areas in RTÉ that, frankly, if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it." 

When asked to elaborate, O'Leary said, "Watching Eastenders and repeats of Joe Duffy's religious programmes. Liveline would be a good starting point, but if you look at Clare Byrne's programme in the morning, it's terrific, [and] Morning Ireland have a great radio programme.

I asked Michael O’Leary how he’d turn around @rte - “there’s a lot of rubbish that needs to be cleaned out.” On his chopping list:
❌@rteliveline
❌ soaps
❌@louiseduffyshow

But also “a lot of good people”:

✅@rtenews
✅@TodaywithClaire
✅@morningireland pic.twitter.com/a8ODLCQkfj

— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) September 14, 2023

"I always look at Newstalk's schedule, they do a great morning with Shane and Ciara. Pat Kenny does three hours then, I think he's terrific. If you look at RTÉ, the morning programme is great, then Ryan Tubridy plays records for an hour, complete waste of time. Why doesn't Clare Byrne do three hours instead of two hours? And then they cut off to somebody else playing bloody records between 12pm and 1pm. Why doesn't the lunchtime news do that?  

"So there's lots of efficiencies that I think you could impose on RTÉ, but there's a lot of very good people in RTÉ who do a very good job and I think this summer has been traumatic for them, but there's also a lot of rubbish in there that needs to be cleaned out."